#boardroom for rent in Delhi

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Redefining Workspaces in Delhi: A Deep Dive into Innov8's Office Solutions

Introduction:

In the ever-evolving landscape of Delhi's business ecosystem, the demand for versatile and efficient office spaces is at an all-time high. Enter Innov8, a frontrunner in providing modern office solutions tailored to meet the diverse needs of professionals in the heart of the capital. In this article, we'll explore the spectrum of office spaces available in Delhi and how Innov8 is transforming the work experience by offering innovative solutions for collaboration, productivity, and success.

Shared Office Spaces in Delhi: Innov8's shared office spaces have emerged as a pivotal resource for startups, freelancers, and established businesses. These spaces are meticulously designed to foster collaboration and creativity, providing an environment where professionals can thrive and interact organically.

Serviced Offices in Delhi: For those seeking a turnkey solution, Innov8's serviced offices in Delhi offer fully-equipped workspaces with all the essential amenities. By handling logistical concerns, Innov8 allows businesses to focus on their core operations while enjoying a seamless and professional work environment.

Meeting Room for Rent in Delhi: Innov8 simplifies the process of finding an ideal meeting room in Delhi. Whether it's a client presentation, team meeting, or brainstorming session, Innov8's well-appointed meeting rooms provide a conducive setting for productive discussions and collaborative endeavors.

Boardroom for Rent in Delhi: Elevate the sophistication of your business engagements with Innov8's stylish boardrooms for rent in Delhi. These spaces are equipped with cutting-edge technology and upscale furnishings, creating an ambiance that is conducive to high-stakes meetings and strategic planning sessions.

Conference Room for Rent in Delhi: Innov8 offers top-notch conference rooms in Delhi designed to accommodate various events, from seminars and workshops to large-scale conferences. The spaces are equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, ensuring a seamless experience for both organizers and participants.

Desk Space in Delhi: Recognizing the need for flexible desk spaces in Delhi, Innov8 provides professionals with customizable options. Whether you're a freelancer seeking a productive environment or a professional in need of a temporary workspace, Innov8's desk spaces cater to your unique requirements.

Hot Desking in Delhi: Embrace flexibility with Innov8's hot desking options in Delhi. Ideal for professionals on the move, these dynamic workspaces promote networking opportunities and collaboration, offering a cost-effective solution for those who value adaptability.

Private Offices in Delhi: Innov8's private offices provide businesses with secure and customizable workspaces, ensuring privacy and concentration. These offices come fully equipped with all the amenities required for seamless operations, allowing businesses to concentrate on growth without getting bogged down by logistical concerns.

Dedicated Desk in Delhi: For a personalized and secure workspace within a vibrant community, Innov8's dedicated desks offer consistency and individuality. This option is perfect for professionals who seek a dedicated space to call their own within a collaborative and thriving environment.

Conclusion:

Innov8 stands as a trailblazer in redefining office solutions in Delhi. From shared spaces to private offices, meeting rooms, and beyond, Innov8 caters to the diverse needs of businesses and professionals, cultivating a collaborative and productive work environment in the heart of Delhi's business district. Experience a new era of work with Innov8 and reshape the way you approach business in the bustling capital.

Share this Blogs & your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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Types of office space in Delhi-NCR

Understand the various types of Office Space in Delhi-NCR. Although some companies choose open-plan workspace, executive private office space in Delhi-NCR which are constantly in demand. There are several solutions that could work with each individual's choices.

We invest the majority of our time and effort to an office space in Delhi-NCR. We spend more time with our coworkers during the day than we do with our family and friends. So it is the region where a significant portion of life has been extinguished. We spend the first half of our lives working at different places of employment. When we retire, we typically miss working the most rather than enjoying our new leisure. Human instinct drives it. According to the report, most professionals are not happy with their office space.

Not only is it crucial to hire excellent individuals to keep your company going smoothly. To ensure that they give their best efforts, you must offer them a premium office space in Delhi-NCR with the necessary amenities. In Delhi-NCR, for example, the Add India office space is the perfect choice for individuals looking for customized, ready-to-use workspaces.

You now see why office space plays such a big role in our lives. Now that you want to have your own office space in Delhi-NCR, you need to give it a lot of thought.

There are several types of office space in Delhi-NCR. Examine the list below and choose the option that best meets your preferences and requirements.

Traditional Office Space

As the name suggests, this is one of the most popular and traditional styles of office space in Delhi-NCR. It gives employees a private room or areas where they work and can have a communication freely. Since the office space in Delhi-NCR is designed from scratch, it typically requires a significant investment. Even if they only need it for a short period of time, the occupier is still responsible for all costs. The entire office space can be customized to the occupants' preferences.

It gives you a space that you can truly call your own. You can be responsible for utilities, maintenance, and office personnel and leases are frequently for at least three to five years. A solid business with at least a few employees may do well with standard rented premises.

Law firms, hedge funds, or organizations providing financial services will benefit most from the traditional office space in Delhi-NCR. Private, quiet spaces are made available to the staff so they can focus on their task. Traditional office space in Delhi-NCR consists of spaces like the reception area, bullpen, boardroom, and private offices. Traditional office space in Delhi-NCR requires long-term leases, typically 3 to 5 years or more.

 Co working Space

The popular "co working space" model offers flexible workstations that may be arranged to match individual needs and often include conference rooms and break out spaces. Small businesses and startups are more likely to choose these when they need office space in Delhi-NCR for an indefinite amount of time.

You may reserve a desk for a day of co working office space in Delhi-NCR. Appliances, common rooms, and shared amenities all contribute to lower costs. If you're looking for co working space in Delhi-NCR, Add India Group is the best option. In the past 12 years, it has served 1500 clients and is the top service provider for office space in Delhi-NCR.

Members of co working spaces are free to use a dedicated office or a shared workspace. Co working office space in Delhi-NCR can encourage networking and collaboration. For companies with one or a few employees, those with no inventory, and those who experience home isolation, co working office space in Delhi-NCR is perfect.

Co working is an office space in Delhi-NCR where several people work on the same projects or on different ones. Traditional office spaces are not like co working spaces. Co working spaces are useful for startups, freelancers, small businesses with one to many employees, as well as for larger businesses looking to innovate.

The benefits of co working office space in Delhi-NCR include flexible pricing, plans, and space options; 24/7 access; an increase in worker productivity and creativity; the chance to network with people from different professions; and access to basic amenities and services such as free snacks and beverages; high-speed internet; power backup; housekeeping; printing and scanning services, among others.

Shared Office Space

A shared office space in Delhi-NCR offers lower costs and more flexible leasing terms. It offers some social benefits of co working while maintaining some degree of privacy. For those who want to cut costs but don't want to choose a traditional co working office space in Delhi-NCR, it is typically a win-win situation. It also enables you to rent a section of an office space in Delhi-NCR and modify as necessary.

The people, resources, and amenities required to operate an office space in Delhi-NCR are included with your leased space in this plan. Typically, you'll work with other experts in a breakout space, conference rooms, and staffed reception area. As opposed to a regular business rental, lease lengths are shorter. Such office spaces in Delhi might be a suitable alternative for experts, professionals, and small independent businesses.

Source Link: https://boardwalkindia.com/types-of-office-space-in-delhi-ncr/

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East India Office Space at a Glance

The term office is employed in two different senses. At the first sense - that the physical location of a workplace (including its interior layout ), and also in the second sense - that the physical location of the workplace in connection with where it makes business. In business parlance, the term'office' includes the facilities and equipment that an office user should conduct their company, in addition to the way of communicating that allow users to present their messages in whatever format they choose. This definition also includes any offices that are jointly owned by more than 1 individual. These offices have been referred to jointly as'franchises'. A workplace is usually defined as spaces that employees use to perform their occupation. In previous times, the definition of an office was somewhat more inclusive. It usually referred to constructions which were constructed for individual use by employees. Modern definitions of an office environment have obtained this perspective into consideration by adding public places such as boardrooms, conference rooms and reception rooms. The modern office furniture trends reflect these changing attitudes. Modern offices are spaces which reflect both the function and also the culture of the firm. Generally, office buildings and spaces include open plan offices. Open plan offices allow for natural light to filter through the workplace interior. This organic light helps to reduce the expenses of cooling and heating. Another trend which is now popular with modern offices is that the usage of minimalist designs. Minimalist designs are characterized by a simple type of furniture along with also a minimalist palette of colors. As one can state, in most portions of the USA and Canada, open-plan offices have started to predominate. In the United States, this trend has been driven by the development of insurers in the last few decades. Insurance providers can save tens of thousands of dollars each year in fuel and utility costs with offices situated in areas that allow them easy access to their clientele. In addition to insurers, numerous real estate companies are also choosing open-plan offices. Real estate companies have traditionally had their own buildings which house their own employees, stock and associated services. These firms are able to save thousands of dollars annually in utility and heating bills by choosing to rent space rather than purchasing expensive office buildings. In India, the majority of the big commercial organizations are choosing open-plan offices, which are located strategically located in metropolitan cities. But, there are a number of exceptions in the eastern segment of India, where open-plan offices have been the order of the day. In actuality, there are a few notable business players in southern India that choose to rent office areas, which are found in the eastern region of the country. Some prime examples of companies choosing to lease such office buildings comprise Hero Group (which are included with property management), Raheja Group (which deals with real estate in UPVC buildings), and Unitech (one of the top IT leading in north India). All these companies have various reasons for choosing for such offices, however, the bottom line remains that these offices help immensely in reducing operational cost. With thousands of new office buildings being constructed in west India, demand for office space is currently on the rise. The firms involved with the construction and management of such buildings will be in need of competent manpower. All these companies can easily meet the requirements for these office spaces given the necessary work force is current and accessible. 부산오피 Some prime examples of these businesses include Eros Consultancy Services Pvt Ltd, that are included in the managing of numerous office spaces in the west; Cogent Energy, that deal with different types of jobs including office buildings; along with Khajuraho Industries which are one of the most famous manufacturers of office buildings from India. If it concerns the demand for modern, spacious and well-equipped offices, the essentials of the Indian market don't differ considerably from international standards. However, the availability of appropriate office spaces from the east is crucial as far as clientele is worried. A prime example of such an office area is located at Chanakya, Delhi. This is a lavish office complex that offers all of the vital facilities to its clientele such as high speed broadband net, free laptops and possibly even CCTVs for the surveillance. There are a few well recognized agencies that take part with the provision of such offices plus they comprise Manipal Group of Estheticians (M.E.E.) Ltd and also Manipal Group of Servicers (M.S.E.) The majority of these office buildings are close to the significant commercial centres in the cities. This is quite convenient as it usually means that customers will have easy access to their premises with no hassles. The availability of various desks, chairs and other office materials such as computers, scanners and printers is a major element which aids in fostering the image of their organization supplying such services. The existence of different restaurants, pubs and nightclubs in the area suggests that there is a great interacting potential.

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Kinds of Desks And Office Buildings

An office is no space where you does work for another. An office might be an whole building, a single room, an individual's /household apparatus, or an online cafe. Also called commercial office. Various sorts of offices contain boardrooms, conference rooms, billiard tables, and also other areas which accommodate business activity. An office also has the management and staff which benefit a certain organization, business, or workplace. When wanting to rent a workplace on your community market, it is necessary to know where you're going. It's also beneficial to understand your options. Are there any definite locations on the community market offering a workplace at a bargain price? Those do you want to look at first? How do you prefer to begin your own search? 부산오피 These are merely some of the questions which will be able to assist you with your hunt. There are many distinct kinds of offices such as corporate offices, transactional officesand reception offices, and offices that are technical. These will be the most usual kinds of offices found in a variety of places like the east west India region. Corporate offices are usually conducted by large businesses and therefore so are mainly found in the metropolitan cities of Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, and Delhi. Transactional offices usually deal with sales and services whereas executive offices would be those which deal with clients, business deals, confidential advice etc.. Executive offices are usually open plan in temperament whilst plank rooms have fixed buildings. Open plan offices provide more flexibility concerning design and design. Since they can be fully recovered from all sides, they supply the most visibility to your own tenants. The majority of the occasions, these office buildings have been rented by the building owners themselves. The plan of these offices and its own ribbon has changed a good deal during the previous few decades. The major changes are seen at the kind of furniture available in the office environment. Nowadays, everything is made from timber, glass and steel which provide elegant and contemporary look to the environment. In addition to all these things, the absolute most essential aspect for the offices of now is to develop a perfect work place which enhances productivity. When it involves decorating work spaces, the selection of the furniture cannot produce a perfect environment. It has to be complemented with different elements such as the colour scheme, light, wallpapers and carpeting etc.. A good selection of paint colours could draw in the attention of the customers and make them feel more comfortable to do the job from the offices. The selection of wallpapers and also the rugs depends on the type of atmosphere you want to create at the office. Sometimes, offices use bright colors such as white and reddish to attract more attention to the task places. The decoration of those job spaces additionally depends on the type of equipment utilized at the workplace. The normal used tools in the offices of today are printers, computers, scanners, radios, copiers, telephone sets, phones, internet and various other communication apparatus. The computer is the most widely used tool at virtually any offices and is typically used to get the World Wide Web, send electronic mails, and utilize various communication tools. The printers have been utilised to print off documents and demonstrations to different sections. Scanning, faxing and copiers are typically utilised to create an electronic image of the documents that are to be published. These are some of the elements which define a good work place. Besides the aforementioned elements, there are many others like heating systems, ventilation systems, air units, fire alarms, cupboards, shelves and various other elements that are utilized to offer a unique look to the a workplace. There are certainly always a wide selection of styles of desks in the industry. They are available in a variety of materials such as metal, wood, glass and steel. Most of the offices that are constructed in the west are made out of metal, as it's the easiest to utilize. The wooden desks generally do not survive long.

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How can you Ensure That You Are Renting The Right Conference Room?

Office meetings are conducted in conference rooms in India because it builds a professional atmosphere and a perfect workspace. It also helps in taking the right business decisions. Irrespective of the nature of the business, holding a meeting is an integral part of any business. In the earlier days, business people did not give much importance to holding meetings in the conference rooms however with the change in the business trends, and it has become a necessity for businesses to opt for conference rooms.

If you are a businessman running your business in Hyderabad and looking for the perfect conference room, you should not worry much because there are a lot of well-structured conference rooms available in Hyderabad.

Before selecting the right conference room, you should make sure the room has the following facilities:

The meeting room’s layout: Meetings rooms can be of different kinds; however, you should select the room depending on your requirements. Go for a boardroom if you are going to have a formal meeting. If your meeting would involve graphics and presentations, you should go to a theatre room. In case if your meeting includes debates and discussions, then a U-shaped meeting room is preferred. If the meeting room is too tiny, then people might feel uncomfortable, whereas if the room is too large, then space might distract the staff.The ideal size of meeting room depends on the size of the group of people that are expected to attend the meeting. It would help if you decided prudently because the layout of the meeting room plays a crucial role in the successful conduction of the meetings.

Excellent Service: While selecting the meeting rooms in Delhi or any other place, the next important thing is you should keep in mind about the quality of service. The staff should be trained well and should always be on their toes to offer their services whenever needed. Also, there should be a provision of high-speed internet in the meeting rooms. Well facilitated conference rooms will help in making the meetings successful.

Availability of Latest Facilities: You need to check if all the latest facilities and equipment are available in the meeting room. A meeting room should have a projector, whiteboard, meeting room phones, and speakers, etc.

Seating Arrangements: The seating capacity should be sufficient and comfortable. Also, look for soundproof conference rooms. If the meeting rooms are located near common areas and noisy places, it can be distracting for you to concentrate and focus on the meetings. Hence, select meeting rooms which are soundproof or go for those where the surrounding sounds do not interfere with your ongoing meetings.

Price: Price is the next important thing that you should have in your checklist. If you find the rates are too high and will burn a hole in your pocket, it is better not to go for those meeting rooms which are easily affordable and fit your budget.

Select the meeting rooms in Hyderabad, keeping in mind the above points, and you would surely be able to choose the right one!  

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THE TAKEDOWN OF TRAVIS KALANICK: The untold story of Uber's infighting, backstabbing, and multi-million-dollar exit packages

Twenty-four hours before Travis Kalanick would make a snap decision that would ultimately force him out of his job, the Uber CEO was relaxing at a rented house in Malibu with several friends.

It was a Sunday afternoon and he was ready for a nap. But as his eyes began to close his phone buzzed.

"Have you seen this?" a friend asked, sending a link to a tweet by a former Uber engineer named Susan Fowler. She had written a blog post titled "Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber" recounting appalling allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation at the company Kalanick had cofounded.

Emil Michael, Kalanick's confidant and Uber's senior vice president of business, burst into the room, waving his phone. He had seen the post.

Kalanick didn't know who Susan Fowler was, but he knew this was a problem.

His life at Uber was about to unravel.

This is the story of how one of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley — who had built-in protections and seemed untouchable — made a series of decisions that cost him his job and ravaged his reputation all within six months.

It's also a look inside an epic boardroom battle that broke Silicon Valley's sacred rules, with investors usurping power from the board to overthrow a visionary and revered, if problematic, founder.

And it's a tale of how backstabbing, greed, mistrust, and a crisis of conscience overwhelmed insiders at the world's most valuable tech startup, with friends and colleagues turning into enemies, all using their wits to move and countermove against one another.

"What we went through in 2017 — you probably have friends who have gotten divorced, and it's, like, the relationships are gone," one insider said.

Business Insider spoke with dozens of people in Uber at all levels over the course of six months to chronicle the chaotic period that ended Kalanick's reign. The stories they shared were corroborated by testimony, documents, and text messages.

The people we spoke with credited Kalanick's wits and tenacity for Uber's spectacular rise; but they also agreed that Kalanick's downfall was largely his own doing. His fast-moving, win-at-all-costs mentality created a corporate culture that has been written about ad nauseam.

What has not been written about is Kalanick's mindset and the circumstances that drove his actions during this fateful period. Who was advising him? Who betrayed him? And what was going through his mind?

One part of what drove Kalanick to the brink was simple: He was terrified of a hashtag.

If Donald Trump had never been elected, Kalanick might still be CEO

That hashtag #deleteuber was born after the 2016 US presidential election, a few weeks after Uber's Washington, DC, policy team suggested to the head of policy and communications, Rachel Whetstone, that Kalanick join President-elect Donald Trump's business-advisory board.

Whetstone, along with others at the company, believed it would be good for Uber to have a seat at the table. Kalanick agreed and became one of a dozen CEOs to join the council, alongside JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon and General Motors' Mary Barra.

Whetstone and Kalanick have since said that was a colossal mistake.

At the time Uber was in a good place. It was operating in more than 425 cities in 72 countries, had 30 million monthly users, and was looking at ending the year with $6.6 billion in net revenues — more than double the previous year.

The company had also put some major legal and public-relations disasters behind it.

It had settled several lawsuits, including a case alleging that staffers had used a secret "God View" feature of its software to stalk a reporter and a $100 million lawsuit with drivers over their being classified as independent contractors.

Uber was also past a 2014 rape case in New Delhi, India, which resulted in Uber being banned from that city for a short time. The next year, the woman, who alleged she had been raped by an Uber driver, sued the company for $18 million. Uber hired an Indian law firm to investigate, and the company agreed to settle her case for $3 million.

"If you'd have asked me on December, 31, 2016, I'd have said, 'We're good. We've cleaned up. Everything's going to be fine,'" one former executive said.

The good feeling didn't last long. In January 2017, shortly after Trump had been sworn into office, the new US president signed an executive order barring people from seven predominantly Muslim countries, and Uber got caught in the crossfire.

Protesters stormed Kennedy Airport, and in solidarity the New York taxi union went on strike. With no cabs available, Uber and Lyft — Uber's archrival in the ride-hailing market — were swamped with ride requests. Uber tweeted it was turning off "surge pricing" (the higher fees it charges during high-demand periods) to show that it wasn't profiteering. But the move backfired: The tweet looked to many like a promotional ploy as people remembered the CEO was on Trump's business council. And #deleteuber went viral.

Kalanick called Trump's travel ban "unjust," and 48 hours later, on February 2, he quit Trump's business council — the first CEO to do so — but it was too late.

By week's end, more than 200,000 people had deleted their Uber accounts, a loss of 5% of the company's market share. Worse, they were leaping from Uber to Lyft. That week, Lyft passed Uber in the App Store for the first time.

In a snap, Uber lost "millions of dollars — easily millions of dollars," one insider told Business Insider and multiple others confirmed.

Losing business to competitors was what Kalanick feared most, and he grew determined that #deleteuber would never happen again.

"That was the beginning," a former Uber exec said.

The hashtag returns

By mid-February, #deleteuber had slowed to a trickle and Uber's top executives were exhausted. Kalanick and Michael booked their trip to Malibu for what was supposed to be a weekend of rest and recovery.

Instead, Kalanick was reading Fowler's post describing a "Game of Thrones"-style culture within in his company, where managers stabbed one another in the back and sexism and sexual harassment ran rampant — and HR didn't seem to care.

The post had been up for only a few hours by the time Kalanick saw it, but it had already gone viral. People with millions of Twitter followers, including tech-industry bigwigs and mainstream celebrities, were publicly trashing Uber.

To Kalanick's horror the #deleteuber hashtag was trending again.

At the rented house, Kalanick and Michael leaped into crisis mode with Michael calling advisers for ideas on how to tame the situation and Kalanick consulting his executives.

Whetstone helped Kalanick craft a statement, and at 3 p.m. he tweeted a promise to investigate the allegations, vowing that any Uber employee who behaved the way Fowler described would be fired. The two men worked until 3 a.m. and then hopped on a flight back to Uber's headquarters, in San Francisco.

The next day, Monday morning, Kalanick huddled with a small team at the office to plot damage control. The room included board member Arianna Huffington, company president Jeff Jones, PR chief Whetstone, and head of HR Liane Hornsey.

They spitballed ideas about how to respond to the growing PR crisis, including sharing unflattering information about Fowler during her time at the company and commenting on her harasser (who had been fired months before Fowler wrote her post).

But they quickly shelved such tactics and focused on the promised investigation. Do it in-house or hire someone? Whetstone warned against bringing in an outsider as third-party investigations could easily snowball. But Kalanick, with #deleteuber on his mind, thought an internal investigation would make Uber look like it had something to hide. He wanted an outsider.

In that case, Whetstone suggested they hire former US Attorney General Eric Holder. He had already done some work for Uber since leaving the Obama administration. Kalanick liked the idea and asked his team to get Holder on board. He didn’t care how much it cost and wouldn't limit Holder's access.

"That decision was made in an instant," one person said. Within hours Holder had signed on.

Kalanick didn't realize it at the time, but he had just hired his executioner. As one former executive put it, "If you put anything under a microscope for long enough, you're going to find it moves."

A Google lawsuit and an Uber executive's $100 million severance demand

Three days later, on February 23, Waymo — the self-driving-car company spun off from Google — slapped Uber with a $2.6 billion lawsuit. The suit alleged that Google's former star engineer, Anthony Levandowski, had stolen self-driving technology from his previous employer and brought it to Uber when Uber bought his autonomous-truck startup, Otto, in a deal worth $680 million. (Google had already sued Levandowski personally.)

Google rarely sues anyone. When asked why Waymo would sue Uber, one former Googler theorized that while Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are generous with their handpicked leaders (they had paid Levandowski $120 million, according to filings from the suit), they may take action if they feel betrayed.

The Waymo lawsuit unnerved Uber's board, especially Bill Gurley, whose firm, Benchmark, was Uber's largest venture-capital investor. Gurley is a Silicon Valley investing legend who has backed successful startups for decades and is known for condemning Silicon Valley’s excessive ways. Gurley had bet on Uber in 2011, when the company was two years old and had 25 employees. Benchmark's stake was now worth billions and accounted for most of his firm's returns. This lawsuit threatened those billions.

On top of that, Gurley felt duped by Kalanick, who had vouched for Levandowski. Kalanick had called Levandowski a "visionary" when he argued for the Otto acquisition at an April 2016 board meeting. Not everyone liked the idea. Michael, the company's head dealmaker, hated it. He thought the price was too high.

The concerns didn't make Kalanick change his mind, but he did take some protective steps. The full payout relied on the Otto team hitting a bunch of milestones. (Uber has paid Levandowski only $100,000 to date.)

Additionally, Uber's head lawyer, Salle Yoo, authorized an investigation into Levandowski and other Otto team members, to ensure they didn't bring over any Waymo technology. This was not an unusual preacquisition legal step, one person explained. Engineers sometimes have backup files on their computers or cloud accounts, perhaps unintentionally.

But the method she chose to conduct this investigation wound up burning everyone.

A member of Yoo’s team hired an outside law firm that, in turn, hired an investigator, a cybersecurity company called Stroz Friedberg. It completed its inquiry before the Otto deal closed, in August 2016, and issued a report concluding that Levandowski did possess Waymo's files — thousands of them — and that it had tried, somewhat inconclusively, to verify if he deleted them all.

Stroz Friedberg's findings should have been a major red flag, enough to kill the deal, one insider told us. But neither Kalanick nor Yoo ever read the report, nor did the board, before the Otto deal closed, several people told Business Insider.

Why they didn’t read it remains a contentious issue among those involved. The ignorance was by design, according to one person close to the situation. Stroz Friedberg's report was handled by an outside lawyer to prevent anyone at Uber from discovering confidential technology from Levandowski and using that information to make business decisions.

But the net result was that Gurley and the board didn't learn about the Stroz Friedberg report until it was unearthed, months later, as part of the Waymo trial. When Gurley finally read it, in May 2017, he was incensed. Kalanick, he thought, had misled him about the entire Otto acquisition. In a deposition, Gurley testified that not disclosing the report to the board “crossed a line of violating fraud and fiduciary duty."

Kalanick was hardly any happier with the situation, and he blamed Yoo.

Salle Yoo had joined Uber as its first in-house lawyer, in 2012, when the company was just a 90-person startup, and for most of their time together they had a good relationship. But as Uber grew bigger and more complex and her team swelled to 290 people, Kalanick felt that too many legal issues were falling through the cracks with serious consequences, including lawsuits.

To Yoo, Kalanick was the problem. She felt that she was kept out of the loop on matters that could affect the company’s legal risk. For instance, as part of this lawsuit, she testified that she wanted Uber to fire Levandowski long before it did and that she was excluded from critical discussions about the engineer that took place while she was on away on a trip.

This suit was a big reason that Kalanick and Yoo mutually decided that Yoo and Uber should part ways.

On her way out the door, she asked for a $100 million severance package.

Yoo thought it was only fair; she had seen male executives ask for huge exit packages and get them. She had spent her career at Uber encouraging women to lean in.

Kalanick had no intention of agreeing to that huge sum.

Her final package, worth tens of millions, amounted to less than two-thirds of her initial demand. But it contained a kicker: If Uber gave a better severance deal to another employee, the company had to come back to her and match the difference.

Yoo’s departure wouldn’t become official for months. It was announced in September, after Uber had hired its new CEO. But Yoo had worked well with Gurley, and with her departure Kalanick lost his long-time head lawyer, who should have been a powerful ally.

Why Uber's head of communications Rachel Whetstone really quit

As Whetstone had warned, within weeks, Holder's investigation had started to sprawl. The board committee that Holder reported to — which included Gurley, Huffington, and David Bonderman, a founding partner of private-equity firm TPG — authorized a second law firm, Perkins Coie, to look into allegations of sexual harassment, bullying, and retaliation. Those were the original charges leveled by Fowler. The committee then tasked Holder with looking into Uber's corporate culture.

As Holder interviewed employees and combed through emails and chat records, morale inside the company went from low to "rock bottom," said one former executive: "People were confused, disappointed, angry."

Unhappy employees gossip — among themselves, with outsiders, and with journalists. Almost every day a new nightmare story about Kalanick and Uber was published.

There was a meltdown between Kalanick and an Uber driver, Fawzi Kamel, wherein the CEO was shown in a video scolding the man.

It leaked that a star Uber hire, Amit Singhal, had been fired from his former employer, Google, for failing to disclose a sexual-harassment allegation.

Vice president Ed Baker suddenly resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct at an Uber party.

The New York Times reported that the company used a software tool known as "Greyball" to hide Uber cars from not only angry taxi drivers but also, eventually, from regulators in cities around the world.

Jeff Jones, the one-time Target CMO who had joined as president less than a year earlier, resigned soon after the Greyball revelation. On his way out he dissed the company's "beliefs and approach to leadership."

Whatever Uber's other issues, it now had a serious PR problem, and its communications leaders couldn't — or didn't want to — get the situation under control, depending on who you ask.

But it was one story in particular that caused Kalanick's inner circle to turn on one another.

In late March, tech-industry news site The Information published a story about a group of Uber executives — including Kalanick, his then girlfriend, Gabi Holzwarth, and Emil Michael — visiting a South Korean karaoke bar in 2014. That bar turned out to be more like an escort service, featuring women with numbers taped on them.

Before Holzwarth talked to The Information, she reached out to Whetstone and told her that she had received a call from Michael. They had been close friends when she dated Kalanick. Michael warned her that the press might start digging into the Korea incident. Holzwarth told Whetstone that she felt as if Michael was threatening her not to talk.

When the story came out, it included a reference to that phone call and portrayed Whetstone as being sympathetic to Holzwarth and asking her if anyone from Uber had expensed the night in the karaoke bar. The story also said that Whetstone had reported the call to the legal team, which turned the information over to Holder’s investigators, citing someone "with direct knowledge of the matter."

Kalanick was not pleased. As his head of PR, he felt Whetstone was supposed to be defending the company from stories like these, not be part of them.

Whetstone had already had a reputation inside the company as being difficult to work with, becoming easily upset, or even irrational. She routinely threatened to quit, but would then cool down and change her mind. Or Kalanick talked her down and encouraged her to stay.

Kalanick indulged her at first, feeling she was a good resource for the company. But over time, he felt, she had become too much drama to deal with.

Other people at Uber saw Whetstone differently. One employee described her as "intellectually honest." Whetstone was already rich from her years at Google and wasn't under the spell of potential wealth, which drove other top players at Uber. "That made her feel like she could speak truth to power with Travis," a former executive said. "She wasn’t part of the group of yes-men who would never disagree with him."

For her part, Whetstone had become disillusioned with Uber. In her role as a powerful woman in the company, she was someone who many troubled employees and other insiders felt comfortable venting to. As these people shared stories with her, Whetstone began to see Uber differently. She became angry.

She saw a company that needed to grow up, but that under Kalanick wouldn't.

Uber's defiance was baked in. It was Kalanick's greatest strength when Uber was small, but as Uber grew it became the company's greatest weakness, aided by a leadership posse who viewed new governance and controls as annoying, big-company bureaucracy.

"She had this distaste for the company, starting with Travis," one person felt, adding, "Rachel hated the company, but was there punishing the company for making her be there."

After Whetstone's name appeared in The Information story, the increasingly smaller circle close to Kalanick saw it as evidence that Uber's real problem was its PR team.

The company's culture wasn’t toxic, they reasoned, but it was perceived that way because of an endless stream of negative stories leaked to the press, while those who wrote about their positive experiences didn't get their due.

Not only was Whetstone doing a poor job of defending the company, they believed, she was riling other employees and stirring up gossip. Kalanick talked to her about these concerns. The subtext was alarming: the implication that she was somehow the source of the leaks.

Such intimations were both insulting and potentially career-ruining. A PR person found to be leaking would almost definitely never work again — even if leaking about a toxic culture would spark necessary changes and be considered the ethical thing to do.

Once again, in early April, Whetstone quit. The next day, as she had before, she changed her mind.

This time, however, Kalanick accepted her resignation. Over dinner, they amicably negotiated an exit package involving millions of dollars' worth of stock that vested over time and agreed on a face-saving explanation that kept Whetstone on as a consultant.

On April 11, her resignation was announced and Kalanick publicly praised her as she left, calling her "a force of nature, an extraordinary talent and an amazing player-coach who has built a first-class organization."

Tensions grow between Kalanick and Gurley

In the early days, when the company was tiny, Bill Gurley and Travis Kalanick worked closely together. Gurley particularly admired Kalanick’s recruiting talents, like the way he could charm big names into joining the company, including President Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe; VMware star engineer Thuan Pham; and Target CMO Jeff Jones.

But Gurley also saw Kalanick as a young and inexperienced CEO, a visionary perhaps, but one who needed guidance and didn't always listen to advice. In other words, the stereotypical startup founder.

Gurley pushed Kalanick to find a mentor. In 2015 he and Michael arranged for Kalanick to meet legendary CEO coach Bill Campbell, who had advised Steve Jobs and Google's Larry Page, among others. Kalanick was all in, but shortly after their first meeting, Campbell was diagnosed with cancer and stopped taking on new clients.

As the company had been without a CFO since 2015, Gurley pressed Kalanick to hire a new one, someone qualified to run a multibillion-dollar company, arguing this person could be like a mentor. A strong CFO creates internal controls that would detect "the red flags that allow the company to understand when there are problems," as one person described. Other execs — among them Salle Yoo — echoed Gurley's urging for a CFO, "year after year, month after month," one person described. The suggestion fell on deaf ears.

As Uber grew, Gurley and Kalanick began to disagree on a number of issues. Gurley was cautious. He wanted Kalanick to stop burning so much money, taper off the growth plans, and increase the bottom line.

Kalanick, meanwhile, began to see Gurley as a drama-filled drag, perpetually appearing on CNBC to whine about a possible tech bubble. He pushed communications with Gurley off to his wingman, Michael; it was a cold-shoulder strategy Kalanick had used with others, including Whetstone, when he felt he didn't need them anymore.

As the troubles of 2017 piled up — the Fowler uproar, Waymo, Uber's leasing business racking up $1 billion in losses (something a CFO might have prevented) — Gurley went from worried to frightened.

"Travis was a wild card," one person close to the situation said. "Something in him needs to break the rules, be a contrarian, even when it's against his own interest. The board felt they couldn’t trust him."

Gurley feared Uber was the next Zenefits or, worse, another Theranos, and if he didn't fix it immediately, Uber's value could plummet to zero.

One woman's email pushed Gurley over the edge

In late April, Gurley, who had been texting with Michael nearly every day to stay in the loop, abruptly stopped. His brief explanation was that their relationship had changed.

Gurley was by that time under siege himself, spending 80 hours a week on Uber, daily from 5 a.m. to midnight — board meetings, special sessions, paperwork, powwows with investors. The press was hounding him, too, so much so that in April he changed his phone number.

Gurley began telling his poker buddies that he was a wreck over Uber's culture and the growing number of lawsuits and government investigations that came as a result of issues like Greyball being revealed in the press. He had trouble sleeping. He gained weight. He took up yoga.

It wasn't just Gurley's own money that was on the line. His Benchmark partners, who all hold equal stakes in the firm's investments, were also concerned, as were Benchmark's limited liability partners — the groups who bankroll a venture-capital fund so that it can invest in startups like Uber. They were reading the negative news reports and freaking out about their money too.

And then there were other investment firms that had followed Gurley's lead and poured billions into Uber. The company had raised an unprecedented $15 billion by mid-2016.

Gurley, as a Valley investment legend, knew all of them, and they were calling him demanding he get Uber's culture under control and protect their hides.

That was easier said than done. Kalanick, like many tech founders, had ensured that as his company grew he maintained control. He didn’t have absolute power, but it was close. "It didn’t start that way and it never fully got there, but, almost in a Frankenstein way, there were these things levered on along the way," one person described.

For instance, Uber's early employees and early-stage investors had shares with super voting rights (that is, 10 votes for every share), but all later-stage investors and employees had no votes at all per share. Kalanick was one of the largest holders of super voting shares. Between a combination of bylaws and loyalties, Kalanick also controlled enough board seats to make it extremely hard for the board to fire him as CEO.

As Gurley pondered his options, he received an email that kicked him in the gut.

It was from Katrina Lake, CEO of the apparel-shopping service Stitch Fix, one of Benchmark's other highly successful portfolio companies.

Lake lambasted Gurley for not doing enough to fix Uber. She accused him of shirking his responsibility to make Silicon Valley a better place.

Gurley realized that Benchmark was in a lose-lose situation. The firm's reputation with other tech entrepreneurs would be hurt if he orchestrated a revolt against Kalanick. But it would also suffer if Benchmark appeared to do nothing.

He made a choice: Kalanick had to go, and if the board wouldn’t — or couldn’t — do it, he'd find another way.

The full Holder report: loaded with allegations

The spring of 2017 dealt Kalanick another painful blow. On May 27, his mother was killed in a boating accident and his father was badly injured.

Despite the infighting, all of Uber's board members and investors reached out to offer condolences.

Except one.

Kalanick heard nothing from Gurley, not even when he saw him for an in-person meeting. It was a bad sign.

A couple of days later, Levandowski pleaded the Fifth Amendment in the Waymo trial and refused to defend Uber. Visionary or not, Kalanick bowed to pressure and fired him.

The press was now publicly speculating about whether Kalanick would be fired, too.

Days after that, on June 6, the results of the Perkins Coie sexual-harassment investigation were revealed. The firm had looked into 215 claims of harassment and other bad behaviors.

Following the report, 20 people were fired, five of them over sexual-harassment allegations. The others were terminated for things like bullying coworkers and retaliating against those who had made complaints to HR.

Kalanick saw the results as a net win for Uber and told his employees so. Out of 15,000 people in the company, only a handful were bad apples and all of them were now gone. That, he pointed out, was a very low percentage, which showed that Uber was largely not a terrible place to work. And no sexual-harassment allegations were ever leveled at Kalanick himself.

Holder's report was presented to the board a few days later. It included a long list of complaints employees had lodged during the investigation into Uber's culture, many of them uncorroborated. The board agreed the full report would remain under lock and key, no copies made, to keep it from leaking to the press. The only way to read it was in law firm's office, under supervision.

Holder's report also contained a list of recommendations for changing the company's culture. First on the list was to reduce Kalanick's responsibilities by hiring a COO, something Kalanick had been trying to do for months anyway.

The second recommendation, however, was never publicly revealed.

"It was that Michael should leave the company," a person with knowledge of the matter told Business Insider.

On June 12, Uber announced Michael's departure. His name had been mentioned in some of Uber's scandals over the years  and in some of the bad press in 2017, like one involving a second lawsuit over that India rape case. That proved to be unfair, and Michael's name was dropped from the suit accordingly.

Still, according to one person, forcing him to resign was symbolic, a sign that Kalanick did not have an iron grip on the company anymore and couldn't protect his closest allies. The most trusted confidant in Kalanick's ever-smaller circle was now gone. There were very few executives left at Uber who still had Kalanick’s back.

On June 13, Uber told its employees and the public about Holder's recommendations for changing its culture. And, with the investigation completed, Kalanick announced he was taking a leave of absence to grieve.

And Gurley was ready to make his move.

Cornered in a Chicago hotel room

Despite going on leave, Kalanick didn't completely stop working. He was still trying to hire a COO.

On June 21, Kalanick held a meeting with a COO candidate and the conversation ran long. The candidate had to fly to Chicago, so Kalanick booked a ticket and flew with him, finishing the interview on the way.

While Kalanick was in his Chicago hotel room, Gurley's partners at Benchmark, Matt Cohler and Peter Fenton, contacted Kalanick, wanting an immediate meeting. Kalanick told them he was in Chicago. They flew there, went to his hotel room, and handed him a letter.

It said that a group of investors were demanding Kalanick's resignation.

Normally, it is the board that fires a CEO, but Gurley, with the support of his partners, had gone around his fellow board members and enlisted some of Uber’s biggest early investors, among them Fidelity, Lowercase, Menlo Ventures, First Round Capital, all owners of super voting shares.

The letter gave Kalanick three hours to decide. If he refused to resign, the group would launch a PR campaign against him: more negative press, more #deleteuber.

Kalanick felt like he had no choice.

He negotiated for more time and talked to several people about his options. But he was also physically tired and, having just buried his mother, emotionally exhausted from grief. The famously combative CEO had finally run out of fight.

That evening Kalanick signed the letter. He was no longer the CEO of Uber, the company he loved, that had been his life for the better part of a decade.

Gurley also resigned from the board. He, too, was exhausted.

Gurley also knew that being involved in an investor revolt had burned some bridges with the rest of the board members. Kalanick, who was still a major shareholder, was still on the board, too.

Benchmark's Matt Cohler, who had been friends with Kalanick for years before the Chicago meeting, took Gurley's seat.

But the fight wasn't over.

Benchmark files an unprecedented lawsuit

The board now had the major task of hiring a new CEO.

Stories that Kalanick was hampering the search with the hope of getting himself reinstated began to appear in the press.

These reports angered and hurt Kalanick, who had not only been forced out of his job but felt he was doing everything he could as a board member to find a great replacement.

"Name one thing I did to block the CEO search?" he was heard saying to people.

A revolt was also brewing among the cabal of executives who were running the company now that there was no CEO and no COO.

On July 22, this 16-person management team sent a letter to Uber's board. In it they complained that Kalanick was interfering with their work and demanded relief. Not all of them agreed with the letter, one person said. Some even thought that Kalanick was just trying to be helpful in his own way. But it was signed by "the executive leadership team" representing all of them. This was the second letter the board received from complaining executives. The first one was signed by six of them just before Kalanick had taken his leave.

Benchmark was now convinced that Kalanick was plotting his return and had to be stopped.

On August 10, while Kalanick was on a flight to Seattle to interview Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi for Uber's CEO job, Benchmark filed a suit against him. It accused him of committing fraud over two board seats he controlled and argued that he should be kicked off Uber's board.

The suit shocked the Valley: A VC suing a founder after forcing him to resign was unheard of.

The press was once again feasting, and Kalanick felt duped. He thought by resigning as Benchmark had demanded, he would be avoiding more bad PR for himself and Uber.

Kalanick spent the day at his hotel talking to lawyers. He eventually called Khosrowshahi at 10:30 p.m. and Khosrowshahi agreed to a late-night meeting. It went well and Khosrowshahi decided to pursue the job.

But Kalanick was backing another candidate, former GE CEO Jeff Immelt. And Benchmark had its own candidate, Meg Whitman.

That meant things would get ugly, again.

Strong words in the boardroom

When the board met later, in August, to make its final CEO choice, Immelt quickly learned that he didn't have the votes to be appointed and bowed out.

The board was evenly split between Whitman and Khosrowshahi. They spent two grueling days locked in a room debating the two choices and taking anonymous straw votes.

At one point, the discussion turned to the Benchmark lawsuit and how Benchmark was so comfortable in Whitman's abilities that if the board voted for her, the firm would probably drop its suit against Kalanick.

That idea didn't go over well. Some board members pointed out that if such a damaging suit wasn't absolutely necessary, it should be dropped, and it definitely shouldn’t be used as leverage for the CEO vote. Kalanick argued to the board that this was proof that Benchmark’s tactics were nothing more than trying to bully people — not just him but the board as well.

Whether that clinched it for Khosrowshahi is a source of controversy among those with knowledge of the situation. But he soon picked up enough straw votes to win.

When the board cast an official on-the-record vote, everyone, even Benchmark, unanimously voted Khosrowshahi in. No one wanted to go on the record as opposing the new CEO from the get-go.

Still, hiring a new CEO wasn’t enough for Benchmark and the Uber executives and investors supporting it. Benchmark wanted changes to the stock structure and bylaws to ensure Kalanick could not undermine Khosrowshahi and orchestrate a comeback. As VCs, they had seen such shenanigans before.

"Ninety percent of ousted founders detest the new CEO and try to run them out," one person with knowledge of Benchmark’s thinking told Business Insider.

The deal that ended the feud

As he took over the reins of Uber, Khosrowshahi needed to put an end to the drama and dysfunction that had torn the company apart, and he quickly saw his chance.

Kalanick had been angling for months to take on new investment from Japanese tech giant Softbank, which, through its $100 billion Vision Fund, was pumping billions of dollars into hot startups and putting its enormous global power behind those companies.

Softbank had been investing in ride hailing all over the globe and wanted a piece of Uber. But it threatened to throw its weight behind Lyft if an Uber deal didn’t materialize — something Kalanick dreaded.

So Khosrowshahi brokered a compromise: As part of the Softbank investment Kalanick wanted, Benchmark would get the governance changes it sought.

In January, when Softbank closed on a 15% stake in Uber, the super voting shares were eliminated (every share now gets one vote) and four new seats were added to the board to dilute Kalanick's control.

A happyish ending for all

When you ask insiders what led to Travis Kalanick's downfall, there are a few things everyone agrees on.

Uber grew too quickly, from 6,700 employees in December 2016 to 15,000 by June 2017, and devolved into chaos before proper HR procedures and seasoned executives could be put in place.

Most blame Kalanick for this, saying he was more focused on world domination than seemingly mundane, operational details.

There are also a lot of wild conspiracy theories whispered around: an Uber competitor engaged in sabotage; leaks came as an inside hit job from those who supported Benchmark's desire to fully remove Kalanick; opposition research was dedicated to smearing specific Uber executives.

And the long-term fallout from the feud remains to be seen. Tensions are still high between many former Uber execs.

And it's unclear how the reputational consequences for Benchmark will shake out. By leading a coup against a founder, Benchmark broke a sacred Silicon Valley rule about how it treats the founders it backs, and set a dangerous precedent for other investors and boards.

Although Uber is rehabilitating its public image, it still needs to win in the cutthroat ride-hailing business and do it without a visionary, if problematic, founder at the helm.

Still, for now the storm has passed.

It's been a year since Susan Fowler's blog post and nine months since Kalanick resigned as CEO. Fowler has sold her story for a forthcoming book and movie.

Benchmark sold $900 million in shares to Softbank and got a commitment that Uber would go public by 2019, giving it a path to collect on its billions.

After Kalanick’s power was reduced, Benchmark agreed to drop its lawsuit against him.

Under Khosrowshahi, Uber settled the Waymo suit for $500 million, ending a source of much of the bad press and drama.

Whetstone is a vice president of communications at Facebook, and as influential as ever.

Gurley is talking to the press again, sleeping well, and happy.

Kalanick went from a jobless paper billionaire to an actual cash billionaire after he sold $1.4 billion worth of his shares to Softbank. He just announced he is setting up a charitable foundation and investment fund. He remains on Uber’s board and still has a huge stake in the company.

And he's now focused on life after Uber.

While he feels that 2017’s unrelenting bad PR unfairly villainized Uber, and that the company remains misunderstood, the gut-wrenching ride forced Kalanick to do a lot of reflecting.

"In 2013 Travis was hotheaded," one person described. "By 2017 he was a gentle, diplomatic giant compared to what he was. He's a growing, learning human being."

SEE ALSO: Inside the world of Silicon Valley's 'coasters' — the millionaire engineers who get paid gobs of money and barely work

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[luxuryconnectbusinessschool-blog]

LUXURY & THE INCREDIBLE INDIAN AFFLUENT – TOP TEN MISCONCEPTIONS By ABHAY GUPTA, Founder & CEO – Luxury Connect & Luxury Connect Business School, New Delhi, India

2016 comes to an eventful end with various upheavals across the globe. Ranging from terror attacks in Europe; the Brexit fiasco in Great Britain; the unexpected victory of Donald Trump in USA and to the last but not the least, the demonetization drive by Prime Minister Modi in India.

All these factors have had adverse and or positive impacts on the luxury domain. Global luxury industry valued at a whopping 1 trillion Euro in 2015 (Bain & Co) registered a mere 5% growth over 2014. The global luxury market has reached an era of single digit growth. However, as the rest of the world stabilizes, the Indian growth story is hard to discount. For most luxury brands, India has become the ‘hottest market place’. Growing at approximately 25% CAGR, it is estimated to have reached $18.3 billion from $14.75 billion in 2015. The single biggest factor contributing to this growth is the steep rise of the affluent class due to the stellar performance of the economy and the ‘start up’ culture. Estimates reveal that the number of HNI households have grown at a CAGR of 16% from 81,000 in 2011-12 to 146,600 in 2015-16. This is further expected to increase to 294,000 representing a total net with of IRS 319 trillion 

While there is a tremendous buoyancy around the affluent Indian & his luxury consumption, there are clearly a few misconceptions in the minds of the marketeers.

1.      The affluent Indian makes & spends money easily: This perhaps is the biggest misconception going around. Making a Indian spend his money is a acid test for any brand. India typically has two types of affluent – ‘The khandani raaes’ (traditional rich) and or the ‘New Maharaja’ (people who made money post partition in 1947). Both of them work long hours, forego a lot of personal time, make sacrifices, undertake a lot more risk  & add value to the society as compared to many others.  Hence, they are cautious spenders & research well before they splurge on luxury, only to seek the best. The traditional rich, being generally well-informed & highly knowledgeable, likes to preserve his heritage and wealth handed over by the generations. The new maharaja, on the other hand, having made the entire wealth in his own lifetime, is a cautious, hard working and extremely value-seeking customer. His erstwhile middle class background makes him seek justification for every spend he carries out. Both seek respect for their time, recognition for their hard work, status and individuality – do not take them for granted. 2.      All Indian Nouveau rich are conspicuously ostentatious spenders:  While this may be true for a vast variety of customers visiting luxury stores, it is a grave mistake to generalize all the nouveau rich into logo thirsty clientele. Fact remains that many of the ‘valuation business’ (read e-commerce boom) super rich generation have made quick money in the past few years. Usually of highly technical background, the back end culture they belonged to never give them any real need for all things fancy & expensive. They now wish to acquire style to suit their status, which is not necessarily loud, & logo driven. They are shy as well respectful towards others, typically will experiment with brands, products, services. Influenced by other user experiences rather than just pure sales talk in their decision making process, they usually like to be subtle and elegant rather than loud and garish.Treat them with respect for their human values and admiration for the success they have achieved in a short span of time. Not many can duplicate what they have achieved in a very short span of time. 3.      Most (new) Indian affluent can’t define luxury nor recognize luxury brands: On the contrary, most of them are clear with their definition of luxury. To mistake their simplicity for ignorance can be a fatal mistake. In a fast emerging market like India, they may not recognize the brand or even get the brand name pronunciations wrong. However, each one has his own purchase motivations, which may run beyond the standard boardroom definition of luxury. They are fast learners and would like you to arrive at the value proposition of your brand quickly.‘Underestimate yourself & overestimate the other’ can be a sure shot success mantra. Inform, educate, guide and lead them to purchase. 4.      Luxury is the sole prerogative of the affluent class:  On the contrary, in a country like India, luxury is a bigger pull for various other classes. These range from the Henry, the upper middle class, the returning NRI, to the first time aspirant. (Read ‘The Incredible Indian Luxury Consumer). Luxury brands and services need to address and offer products that can draw in all such classes into their zone and create a much wider reach, recognition and goodwill for the brand.India is a market with a majorly unexposed population – people with rich tastes and high cultural values seek all things good in life. Expand your horizon beyond the theory book definition. 5.      Indian affluent spend more on luxury goods than services: There can be no bigger misnomer than this. While the initial spends are towards luxury goods like watches, apparels, accessories, automobile followed by home and interior, the switch to services happens quickly. The newly acquired status needs to be shared and appreciated by near & dear ones extending into a wider social circle. Spending on beauty, fitness, entertainment, fine dining, concierge, travel, tourism etc quickly ramp up the spend chart.Offer compelling experiences to them and their circle of friends to enable them feel important in the eyes of their social network. 6.      Indians do not shop Luxury online:  A generally tech oriented nation, thanks to the smart phone revolution, the customer has quickly leap frogged into the digital space! From books to cars to homes and now even yachts are being sold online. Newer concepts like ‘Pre-owned luxury’; ‘Rent a luxury’ are not only adding new dimensions to luxury purchases but also new customers.Be open to experiment and adapt to a fast evolving market. 7.      Indian affluent and Luxury is restricted to metro’s: Contrary to popular belief, the Indian affluent is spread across the entire country. Luxury brands do face a challenge with respect to setting up physical stores in every location, but servicing this fragmented market may be the key to success. The digi-wave has given many new customers to the luxury brands.  They now order through various channels ranging from wats app to face book messenger to trunk shows conducted by brands or event companies across the sub-continent.Think beyond the metro’s – reach out, inform, educate the affluent beyond traditional markets. 8.      Indian affluent does not refer to consumer ratings:  The sharing economy encourages one and all to share experiences, thoughts, opinions and post purchase reactions. Once again, a typically technologically inclined nation, engages with unknown brands basis not only the opinions shared by the brand website but also other uses comments and reactions. This is particularly so in the service sector. While WOM is the universal promoter for luxury goods & services, online referrals are equally important for a wider reach.Be true to the customer by sharing genuine advice & information rather than exaggerated claims. The customer is in all probability pre-informed. 9.      Indian affluent in not brand loyal: While most Indian are yet experimenting with luxury brands and services, the fact remains that by basic nature Indians are generally very loyal – to their wives as well as their brands ! Affluent who have done the entire trial cycle swear by the brand they settle with unless until they encounter some quality or service issue.  Ensure to deliver product and service value every time that the customer shops with you. Do not take him for granted. 10.  Demonetization will affect luxury consumption: Against popular belief, a informal survey with most brands across goods & services show that the affluent and the brands both have embraced the digitization drive for money transfer very well. Post an initial lull and slow down, it is anticipated that business will be back to normal very soon. Luxury surely is recession proof – unaffected by shocks in the economy or otherwise. The Indian affluent continues to enjoy his taste of all good things in life.